An understanding of the control of gene expression is central to the understanding of all biological processes. Over the past decades, the control of gene expression at the transcriptional level has received much attention. More recently, there has been a growing interest in understanding the control of gene expression at the posttranscriptional level. Such control is diverse and complex, involving the steps of transcription elongation and termination, nuclear pre-mRNA processing, the export of nuclear mRNA to the cytoplasm, the initiation and elongation of cytoplasmic mRNA translation, cytoplasmic mRNA decay, and the RNA structures and the diffusible RNA and protein factors that regulate these events. RNA structure is believed to influence nearly every step of posttranscriptional gene expression. New data bearing on higher order RNA structures, atypical nucleotide interactions, and the kinetics and pathways of RNA structure formation are now emerging. Rapidly evolving concepts reflect the speed with which advancements are being made and are predictive of future abilities to understand and manipulate RNA structures in order to understand and manipulate gene expression. RNA-protein interactions are now known to differ substantially from the well-defined DNA-protei interactions that promote and control gene transcription. While primary sequences in RNA may be important in many cases the specificity of an RNA-protein interaction rests largely on conserved structural features of the RNA. A better understanding of RNA- protein interactions will depend upon a better understanding of the details of RNA structure formation and stability, and vice versa. The in vitro design and selection of an RNA binding or enzymatic activity from a randomized library of RNA sequences is also an upcoming area of research. The selectability of RNAs as epitopes that are immunologically cross-reactive to specific peptides has important implications to drug design in the treatment of cancer, AIDS, autoimmunity and heritable disease. The goal of this international meeting is to bring together a broad range of scientists working on posttranscriptional gene expression and the design and selection of RNA binding and enzymatic activities in order to advance the rapidly developing fields of RNA structure, function, and interactions with other molecules.